29th March 2023 - on Monday 20th March, thousands of Iranians held a large rally and demonstration in Brussels, simultaneous with the upcoming meeting of the E.U. Foreign Affairs Council. The protesters demanded the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, as it has been the main apparatus used by the Iranian regime to suppress nationwide protests. Many participants carried the Iranian flag with the lion and sun insignia while chanting, “Blacklist IRGC now!” and urged the E.U. to adopt a decisive policy against the clerical regime’s terrorism, blackmail, and hostage-taking.
Prominent European and American dignitaries, as well as members of the Belgium parliament, addressed the rally, while Iranian activists provided theatrical performances and a large street exhibition.
The program began with a march through the Belgian capital with chants that called on the European policymakers to adopt a decisive policy to deal with terrorism and the blackmail strategy of the mullahs’ regime and to take effective practical measures against the regime’s crimes against the Iranian people. Following the parade, the demonstrators gathered to listen to prominent speakers who have joined the rally.
Below are some excerpts from the speeches made:
Latifa Aït Baala, Member of the Brussels Parliament
The uprising against the regime continues today. This movement started with the struggle against the shah’s dictatorship. The people of Iran don’t want tyranny. The regime is a danger to its own people as well as a threat to peace and stability across the globe.
The regime’s policies must be condemned. It suppresses not only its own people but also takes other nationals as hostages to use as bargaining chips. Some of these activities have been exposed. Fortunately, the UN is taking steps to adopt a firm policy against this regime and to include the name of the IRGC on the list of terrorist organizations. A recent resolution by the European Parliament and the Belgian Parliament called for the black-listing of the IRGC.
Patrick Kennedy, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives
I cannot begin to imagine what it is like for every mother and father, every grandmother and grandfather in Iran who watches their children go out each day to the streets demanding a free country. They must be worried every single day whether their children will be taken, tortured, killed, and even hung like the Iranian regime is doing to its people every day.
Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism around the world, and it is the largest sponsor of terrorism to its own people in Iran as well.
The IRGC is a tool of the mullahs, just as the embassy here in Brussels, in Germany, and in Austria is nothing more than an arm of the mullahs’ dictatorship. We must make sure that the courts here in Belgium do not allow Assadi to go back to Iran, yet he should remain in jail here in Belgium.
Manel Msalmi, international affairs advisor at the European Parliament
The people of Iran have paid a heavy price for their freedom. We must support them and let them know that you, Europe, and the international community do care about human rights, about their freedom, about a democratic, secular republic that respects human and women’s rights.
I strongly condemn the poisoning of girls at schools, which is clearly an attempt of the regime to silence young women and girls and to make them support it. But these young women fearlessly stood up and protested the brutal dictatorship. They reject any form of dictatorship. They called for the establishment of a democratic and secular republic, and that’s why we had slogans in the streets, calling for neither shah nor mullahs. All Iranian people are calling for a democratic, secular, and independent republic.
